Platfora

Platfora, Inc. is a big data analytics company based in San Mateo, California. The firm’s software works in tandem with the open-source software framework Apache Hadoop to assist companies and government organizations with rapid data analysis, data visualization, and sharing.

History

Platfora was founded in 2011 by Ben Werther. Werther studied Computer Science at Stanford University. Prior to founding Platfora, he worked at There Inc., Siebel Systems, Microsoft, and Greenplum. In 2011, Werther met regularly with former coworkers John Eshleman and SriSatish Ambati in a café in downtown San Mateo, California. At one of these meetings, while discussing the technical process of big data analysis, Werther realized that he could develop software that paired with Hadoop to greatly speed up data analysis and visualization. Werther sought financing to start Platfora; Eshleman was initially an adviser, and later joined Platfora as founding vice president of technology. Ambati formed his own company, Oxdata (now H2O.ai). In 2012, Platfora acquired startup Plot.io for its browser-based data visualization technology.